Southwest corner of 23rd, a sturdy ten-story leaked bright stripes through third-floor storm shutters. A generator rumbled from a lower floor, the quiet, expensive kind. Out front, a single ancient streetlamp leaned over the broken sidewalk like a drunk, pulsing to the generator’s rhythm. I stared at the barricaded glow from a doorway across the avenue. I’d been here on a training run hardly a month ago: the whole sector had been dark and desolate. Was this some new den, staking claim to a bit of neutral turf?

The dens kept their distance from each other, but basic cooperation was the norm. Word would get out if a new one started up, rich enough to run a nighttime generator, never mind power a personal streetlight. And den homes had a beehive hum to them, never mind sentries 24/7. Like, my sneak wasn’t all that great yet. Any watch dude worth his sign would have spotted me long ago.

Which meant some other kind of newcomers, who could afford to live uptown but chose not to, for reasons of their own—like, stealthy ones. All those grills and grates and shutters would require some serious rebuild, and they’d sure been quiet about it. I prowled a bit more, but the place kept its secrets. Pretty slim, as news goes, but a thin mist was gathering. Rain would be next. I voted for home.

And then that girl showed up.

A soft patter coming around the corner of 23rd. I streak to the nearest door shadow, then lean my nose out for a peek.

It’s a girl on tippy-toe, like a dancer late for an entrance, splashing through the shallows where the crossing dips and holds water. A girl. Alone. She’s moving right along, but not like she’s running from something.

She was my middling height, maybe a little older. Hair my color but straighter, and cut too short for her blunt jaw, like easy care meant more than looks. But her clothes said the opposite, pale and clean even in the steamy heat, uptown clean and uptown simple, floating around her in layers like bird feathers. She was as bright and shiny as the silver dollar my den boss kept tucked in his old leather vest. Could she have just left the lit-up building by some back door? That would explain her being this far downtown and still so clean. And wearing a plump backpack, right out in plain sight.

Really, what was she thinking?

I wrapped my oversized street tee around me and made like a statue in my dark doorway. If some silly uptowner wanted to get herself napped or worse, that was her biz and none of mine. She loped right by me. Could’ve reached out and grabbed her. Others would’ve, even in my den. Fair game, after all. But I’m a picker. Mugger is a different line of training.